One of the problems with old motherboard chipset
heatsinks, apart from their small size, is the little fans almost
always seize up. Constant use, time, and dust bunnies conspire to stop
impeller blades from spinning. If the fan stops on a postage size heatsink,
there's a good chance the chipset will overheat - there's just not enough surface area to adequately release the
heat from the chipset into the surrounding air.

For this problem Zalman have introduced
a small chipset heatsink called the ZM-NB47J.

The Zalman ZM-NB47J is a compact passively cooled aluminum
chipset cooler that measures 37x37mm in size. This extruded aluminum
heatsink is compatible with through-hole attachment methods. The base of the aluminum heatsink is
a mere 24.5x37mm in area.

The ZM-NB47J heatsink comes with a
mounting brackets that fit into channels in the side of the
cooler. Each steel bracket swivels around in
just about any direction so the little northbridge heatsink can accommodate different
motherboards, and mounting points in any orientation.

The versatility of this system allows the Zalman ZM-NB47J to fit on a wide variety of motherboards with
a minimum of fuss. After assembly, the ZM-NB47J is installed without the
use of any tools.

Unlike our normal CPU
heatsink reviews we won't be doing any temperature measurements. Here's a quick look at the Zalman
ZM-NB47J from all sides.

The Zalman ZM-NB47J heatsink is made from an aluminum extrusion, cut into
fins 2x1.5mm in size. For a passive heatsink such as this, it's
understood that the user will have some airflow directed towards the
heatsink - a case fan, the CPU heatsink fan exhaust, whatever.

There's not much else to the Zalman ZM-NB47J
really, and in that respect it makes a useful replacement for expired
northbridge chipset heatsinks. There is no fan to break with time, and its'
surface area should ensure adequate cooling with a moderate breeze
moving over the aluminum fins.

The only shortcoming we can see with the Zalman ZM-NBF47 is that it
won't be of much use on modern Intel chipsets - the 975X, P35, X48 are all far too
hot for a small aluminum heatsink such as this. It's hard to imagine a
motherboard with a massive copper and heatpipe chipset cooling system being
replaced by a cooler as compact as the Zalman ZM-NB47J, so don't try. As a general rule of thumb,
we suggest you only replace failed motherboard chipset heatsinks of about the
same size as the ZM-NB47J.

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